"From Little Acorns. . . "

Selected Correspondence of Bernard Shaw: Bernard Shaw and Barry Jackson. Edited by L. W. Conolly. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002. xlii + 218 pp. Index. $60.

In the surprisingly mundane correspondence between Shaw and Barry Jackson (with occasional notes to Jackson from Charlotte Shaw and Shaw's secretary, Blanche Patch, interspersed), Shaw repeatedly offers acorns to Jackson from a superabundant oak tree in his domain, and Jackson's planting of a few of those at Blackhills, his home in Malvern, led to some mighty oaks. That is good enough as an objective correlative of their relationship, which was noteworthy for the way Shavian seeds in the form of both plays and advice significantly contributed to the growth of Jackson's two principal enterprises, the Birmingham Repertory Theatre (beginning in 1913) and the Malvern Festival (1929-37 of the Jackson years), where Shaw was treated like "the Wagner of Malvern."

But Shaw had more seeds to offer than Jackson could use, and sometimes he withheld seeds Jackson thought he needed; Jackson at least once turned down a golden seed in the form of the world première of Saint Joan, and seemed to collude in what Shaw saw as the blacklisting of his plays at Stratford, all of which lent some tension to a relationship that otherwise was ironically lacking in drama. Mutually respectful and admiring of each other's accomplishments and staunch spirit, mainly they provided solace for each other, a sympathetic ear to discouragements and frustrations, as they grew old together (though Jackson was thirteen years younger and did not die until 1961). Perhaps their two most frequently sounded notes were complaints about the sickness of the theater and the sickness of themselves and their partners (colds, flu, headaches, cholera, scarlatina, lumbago, appendicitis, cancer, heart attack, etc., almost always seeming to play a role), reminding us of how the English climate especially plagues the elderly even as the climate of the English theater plagues the playwright and producer who would attempt to cure the nation of what ails it.

Although the majority of the exchanges between Shaw and Jackson are businesslike and matter-of-fact, without the coruscating wit and playful spirit that characterizes so much of Shaw's correspondence with, say, females (and since Jackson was "gay," what can we make of this lack of sparkle here?), this correspondence is nevertheless very informative and in some respects more revelatory of the "human" Shaw than the more famous correspondences in its glimpses into how the Shaws lived from day to day, especially in the later years, with accounts of the war years and their bombings and other tribulations being most engaging. Shaw's income was taxed at 97.5 percent in those years! No wonder he described this as "confiscatory."

The general blandness of this correspondence is nevertheless flavored from time to time with bits of news and gossip and especially theater chat (about the casting of actors and actresses, the difficulties attendant upon certain productions, the programming of "seasons") and, from Blanche Patch, acerbic comments upon the "parasites" around Shaw in his last years. And we hear that Charlotte was often bored and restless in the country (Ayot St. Lawrence), and it is good that Shaw could work anywhere, because anywhere is where they spent a lot of time during the 1920s and 1930s. Many of these letters came from hotels, ships, or other people's houses, a surprising reason, in some cases, being that they gave long vacations to their staff and apparently could not live at home without them! Jackson was also often on the move, as he transferred successful productions at the Rep to London, and then took holidays on the Continent to recover from the stress.

The picture that comes out of this is of Shaw and Jackson, as celebrity playwright and deep-pockets producer (Jackson inherited a grocery store chain), doughtily battling the cultural inertia and lowbrowness of the theater, and scoring many artistic triumphs...